Flying Humans 330
mlimber sends us to the NYTimes for a story about flying people who jump from planes or other high locations wearing a wing suit akin to a flying squirrel's. Their efforts have potential military and Xtreme sports applications. The story profiles, with video, one guy who wants to be the first to jump from a plane and land without a parachute (and live). Here's a YouTube video of another of these fliers skimming six feet above skiers in the Swiss Alps. Quoting: "Modern suit design features tightly woven nylon sewn between the legs and between the arms and torso, creating wings that fill with air and create lift, allowing for forward motion and aerial maneuvers while slowing descent. As the suits, which cost about $1,000, have become more sophisticated, so have the pilots. The best fliers, and there are not many, can trace the horizontal contours of cliffs, ridges and mountainsides."
64 years late! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:64 years late! (Score:5, Interesting)
Wile E's failure... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:64 years late! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not quite the same thing -- they didn't plan to jump without a parachute. If you throw enough people out of aeroplanes (as WWII did), it's not quite so amazing if a couple survive. This guy wants to be one from one -- much more difficult.
Re:64 years late! (Score:4, Insightful)
With a the wind resistance of a skydiver on earth, you would reach your terminal velocity of around 125MPH in about 1500ft or about the height of the sears tower.
Of course this still is pretty high and has a very high risk of death, it would result in only the same risk of death as a fall from 15,000 ft.
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Lethal dose of height (Score:5, Informative)
You hit the ground at about 35-36 MPH from a 48 foot fall, at 84 feet - about 50 MPH. Actually speeds are a little bit smaller,since I didn't takeinto account the effect of wind resistance and body density, and just used the simple physica acceleration formula V^2 = U^2 + 2AS
I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and when fall/jump from those heights, putting them back together can be a bit "tricky", and the pieces don't always go back together well. When the suicide jumper only jumps from 40 feet and lives with horrible fractures, we sometimes joke that they didn't read the literature and plan things out correctly. Now the person is depressed AND may have bad arthritic pain from their smashed joints now, or just be plain old paralyzed.
Life sucks.....and then you live.
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I disagree with your assessment that "it's not quite so amazing if a couple survive." Someone falling from tens of thousands of feet with no protection and surviving is amazing by any reasonable standard.
I disagree with that also. If you plan it for months or years, develop
Much less difficult? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:64 years late! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:64 years late! (Score:5, Funny)
Have you seen jump planes? No seats and there's a huge hole in the wall.
I can honestly say without caveat that of the hundreds of rides I've taken on Twin Otters not once have I safely landed in one.
Vesna Vulovic (Score:3, Informative)
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She may hold the record for the longest fall among those people.
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I think it's more accurate to say that she survived a plane crash in half a plane than freefall without a parachute.
Either way it's an impressive and extremely fortunate piece of accident survival.
How high? (Score:2)
Of course, navy frogmen jump out of helicopters into the sea all the time, and I'm sure that there were many soldiers being dropped off in combat (ie Vietnam) who jumped out of helicopters while they were still flying. Heck, it wouldn't even surprise me if someone dug up a reference of pre-WWI barnstormers having people jump out of
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Extremely unlikely, since barnstorming was a POST WW1 phenomenom. A side effect of a whole bunch of ex-fighter pilots and ex-fighters. Neither of which existed pre-WW1
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The best fliers (Score:4, Funny)
That is because the bad one die.
Darwinism in action
OB In Soviet Russia (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OB In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe they just told us that so we wouldn't bitch about how fast we hit the ground WITH parachutes... One thing the army taught me is that someone ALWAYS has it worse.
Summer recruits (Score:5, Funny)
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"About 2,500 feet."
More muttering, and the guy hesitantly raises his hand to ask another question: "Uh, couldn't we start a little lower, maybe 200 feet?"
"200 feet!? Good
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Three weeks.
The first week they separate the men from the boys.
The second week they separate the men from the fools.
The third week they throw the fools out of a plane.
I got mine... (Score:4, Funny)
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
That sums up so much. Why does any one do anything? Who does anyone jump out from the sky? Why does anyone contribute to open source?
Because it is there
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, why do people go on roller coasters? Not because it's impossible, that's for sure...
And the answer is (Score:2)
Hardly works for an open source, though some uber-optimization can give a brain spasm to those trying to fix a bug in it
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Of course, any kind of flying where you don't have to strip half naked, pass through metal detectors and get searched by goons would be fun too. Only problem with those suits is that I'll bet lighting cigarettes is pretty tough.
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I was not necessarily saying that open source is just as exciting as jumping out of a plane. I am just saying that it is something that people often do because they enjoy the challenge, not for any particular intrinsic benefit.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
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Hey! (Score:5, Funny)
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Darwin Awards (Score:5, Funny)
Darwin in action.
Re:Darwin Awards (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actually, doesn't the term "the best" by definition sort of mean there can't be that many? The best means superior to all others, and unless you're talking about something that has an absolute and measurable limit to "perfection", then "the best" is a pretty exclusive club.
Seriously!
The Best is a *very* exclusive club.
THE Best means implicitly that (as made famous in The Highlander)
There Can Be Only One
People who write such phrases as
The best fliers, and there are not many
write such crap/drivel/rubbish because they don't have anything useful to contribute, but they get paid "by the word" so the more syllables they sprout the more money they make. If they're just spouting off in a public forum (eg like slashdot) they obviously think that taking 20 minutes to contribute 5 seconds of information is proof that they're intellige
An understatement (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say it's the only challenge actually. Gliding around in any winged suit is fun and safe as long as you still open the chute at the end.
Re:An understatement (Score:5, Funny)
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I would say it's the only challenge actually. Gliding around in any winged suit is fun and safe as long as you still open the chute at the end.
Pilots have a saying that sums things up quite nicely: "Take-off is optional. Landing is compulsory."
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Odds of not surviving a hit-
AA = 25%
SAM = 50%
ground = 100%
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I ponder (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I ponder (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I ponder (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I ponder (Score:4, Interesting)
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Pull my finger, Phillip, and we'll see....
Sure, no problem for a gear head (Score:2)
Falling with style (Score:3, Funny)
Bad news... (Score:2, Informative)
I have some bad news for this idiot. Plenty of people have survived jumping out of planes without parachutes.
Nick Alkemade was an RAF tail gunner in World War II who jumped out of his flaming plane and fell 18,000 feet. He only suffered a sprained leg after he hit a tree and landed in snow.
Vesna Vulovic was a flight attendant who fell out of a plane after an explosion, fell in snow, and survived.
Re:Bad news... (Score:4, Funny)
And he liked it!
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I don't think so... Vesna Vulovic [wikipedia.org] was female. ;)
Re:Bad news... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think so... Vesna Vulovic [wikipedia.org] was female. ;)
Flying? (Score:2)
Re:Flying? (Score:5, Funny)
"That's not flying, it's falling with style"
Woody, Toy Story
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Obviously, when they say "lift" they just mean it contributes an upward component to the whole system. They're still plummeting. The clips I've seen look they're doing a little better than 1:1 (which is actually pretty impressive, considering)
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Obviously, when they say "lift" they just mean it contributes an upward component to the whole system.
Well, um, yes. When you have a wing that's in the right shape, and you move air fast enough past it on top of it, it's pulled up. How that is done safely is the $!0,000,000 question and there are only two companies left still in the business. You can see the effect just by blowing across a sheet of paper held in your hand.
You wouldn't need as heavy of an engine if you were starting out dropped from a plane, you also wouldn't need an over-sophisticated wing design because you are starting out with enough
Been around for 10 years (Score:5, Informative)
These things have been around for 10 years. Google Birdman Suit [bird-man.com] or go to any skydiving boogie. Anyone with a D license can demo one.
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Not something I'd ever want to try, but interesting anyway.
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http://leebert.org/skydive/jump2.jpg [leebert.org]
Sad that the flash didn't fire as I expected. Would have been a great shot.
(I took up skydiving two summers ago... I finally actually finished AFF last summer. Hopefully will get my "A" license this spring, when it warms back up again.)
That wasn't flying! That was... falling with style (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That wasn't flying! That was... falling with st (Score:4, Funny)
Bah (Score:2)
Patrick De Gayardon (Score:4, Informative)
Blue Skies Patrick
Viable or not... (Score:2)
The Man Who Rode the Thunder (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The Man Who Rode the Thunder (Score:5, Informative)
Safe Practice (Score:3, Informative)
Now there's a solution, that's probably fun enough in itself that many "skydivers" won't ever have to take a risk at all: SkyVenture [skyventure.com] has wind tunnels set up around the world expressly for simulating skydiving, but without jumping out of a plane. Jumps that last 2-3 minutes, with 45-60 minute setup and plane rides each jump, can now spend hours just "diving" in the chamber.
Maybe once the skills of maneuvering are learned in the tunnel, a suit wearer can tackle the real sport: facing the fear of jumping out of a plane with nothing but a simulator history to save them from smashing to bits.
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All for $75+.
Better video (Score:5, Informative)
Any Aerodynamics Testing? (Score:4, Interesting)
It appears that the suits are just trading vertical speed for horizontal speed. That might keep the flyer from making a crater in a field somewhere, but the human body won't tolerate a 100 MPH slide along the ground very well either. It might be possible to 'land' on a ski slope or a lake. But if the goal is to set down on flat ground, that speed will have to be reduced.
The aero folks get concerned with things like wing loading, drag and stall speed when figuring aircraft landing characteristics. The same would appear to apply here. Unfortunately, we already know what one suitable (no pun intended) glider configuration looks like that is safe for humans. It's a paraglider configuration. I don't think you can hang that much airfoil between your arms and legs.
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Buddy, let me tell you, I've got plenty of airfoil where it counts.
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Not with today's fabrics. But perhaps
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(warning - scary mofo pic ;) (Score:2)
Obligatory Far Side Caption (Score:4, Funny)
Flying Dreams (Score:2)
Maybe I'll try one out someday...
Relevant Perry Bible Fellowship Comic (Score:2)
Pass... (Score:3, Funny)
Forget jumping from airplanes (Score:2)
Come to think of it, landing in one of these jet suits would also be tricky. Parafoil guys can manage a running landing because the wing has great lift at low speeds. The batsuit guy
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Or you could just jump off a high cliff (or bridge, or whatever). If it works from a plane, it works from a tall structure as well. The difficult part is still the landing.
A suit? (Score:5, Funny)
Gypsy Moths (Score:2)
Tracing what? (Score:2)
I'm confused. The worst fliers, people who are merely falling... do they trace the horizontal or vertical contours?
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Free Fall? No Problem! (Score:2)
Admit it: You want to be the sole survivor of an airline disaster. You aren't looking for a disaster to happen, but if it does, you see yourself coming through it. I'm here to tell you that you're not out of touch with reality--you can do it. Sure, you'll take a few hits, and I'm not saying there won't be some sweaty flashbacks later on, but you'll make it. You'll sit up in your hospital bed and meet the press. Refreshingly, you will keep God out of your public comments, knowing that it's unfair to
Re:Free Fall? No Problem! (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately at this point, all those bits are still wayyyy above you, flapping about as they tumble gently to earth. You, however, having been in the "dead spider" position for a few minutes, are wayyyy below them. Bummer.
But still, keep your hopes up and your mind clear, and you'll be able to take some nice shots with your cameraphone, smiling and waving cheekily as you plumment to earth. Try and get into one of those legs-crossed hindu levitation positions for the last ones - they'll look a treat.
Perris, California (Score:2)
Where do these guys get money from? (Score:2)
Not many of the best fliers... (Score:4, Insightful)
Would there not be many because few have tried, or because when you try you have two outcomes: Live or die? Those that live become the best I assume? What about the average ones?
It reminds me of a saying: "There are stupid exterme skiers and there are old extreme skiers, but there are no old, stupid extreme skiers..."